Well, that way we can have more new PWs for every new set/block. The ones we stuck at are Gatewatch power rangers. And tbh I'm kinda tired of them.

Give WotC creative some credit. They worked hard to incapacitate the two of the most popular current non-gatewatch walkers (Elspeth and Sorin). They even gave Tamiyo some crawl-in-a-hole-PTSD in case she became popular. They tried hard to make sure no other popular "heroic" planeswalkers are out there playing about. Having them all be homebodies keeps them from needing to come up with a good story why they stop walking about.

I don't mind the idea that planeswalkers prefer their home plane. Then again, a lot of 'walkers don't consider their native plane to be their home plane.

Sorin was literally the Lord of Innistrad. He created Avacyn (originally) as a way to maintain balance on the plane, and it would make sense that he would want to keep an eye on that. Not to mention that he probably wants that home turf advantage of "super powered angel." I was under the impression that Narset had left Tarkir and wasn't planning to return. I doubt that we will see Sarkhan stay on Tarkir (I expect him to show up in the Nicol Bolas set, along with Ugin)

At the end of the day, their plane they originate from is their home. Some will come to decide another place is home (Chandra, Liliana, and Gideon all do this) but the power of familiarity is a powerful thing. Oldwalkers I imagine were more prone to wandering because they were immortal and omnipotent.

They have to structure a planeswalker with a motivation to leave their home, so that they can realistically justify them leaving. Not everybody is a wanderer or explorer. Narset is framed as a good example of this (pursuit of knowledge driving her away from Tarkir), Elspeth another.

I could see Saheeli going to Ravnica to study, I could see Ral going to a place like Kaladesh. But neither really knows about the other plane, and it seems a little foolish and dangerous to randomly walk to a plane unless you are Garruk or a giant dragon.

It isn't an issue that they are homebodies. It's rather, they never show any result of having gone anywhere at all. They don't show off unique skills or items from other worlds, they don't demonstrate a different mind set they could only learn somewhere else, they cling to acting just like literally the person next to them

It's not always a problem, but far too often, the walkers aren't meaningfully walkers. Daretti, for example, didn't do anything other than pursue his grudges on Fiora. But he didn't even do anything that interesting in accomplishing that goal. He just went to another native and said "wanna bust some **** up?" and Grenzo was like "Do I?!"

So why is he a walker? What benefit does he get from being unbound from his homeworld, especially if we're not going to see the difference between him and the next goblin?

As for Sarkhan, I think he's happy where he is. Unless Ugin actively pushes his ass off the plane, he's got literally everything he ever wanted in life. But he was never a problem in this context because he demonstrated stuff he clearly didn't pick up on Tarkir. He made use of being a walker.

I think Daretti is a bit different, because his whole motivation all along was to get revenge. They have also done a very good job of keeping any sort of time frame for Fiora highly vague. The only reason we hear about him at all is because he is a walker, otherwise he would have been dead. he might not be special as a walker, but by being a walker he is special, even if he only has mundane motives. And who knows, maybe his spider legs are modified based on his walking? MAYBE HE WENT TO ESPER AND GOT SOME ETHERIUM LEGS THAT WOULD BE BOSS.

I think Sarkhan will either A) Follow Ugin wherever he goes or B) Realize things on Tarkir aren't the way they are "supposed" to be because humans are second class. A is ideal, B will simply be to create conflict if they ever return.

Ugin even told him "don't follow dragons, be your own dragon. If you don't, you'll always be a scrub"
So for him to just turn around and follow Ugin (who has demonstrated he's barely better than Bolas by refraining from eating anyone) that would run contrary to the entire last act of Sarkhan's arc!

Sarkhan really doesn't care about where people fall on the foodchain either. He's a psycho that thinks dragons should be acting that way. Narset would be the pro-human activist in that scenario.

Is my namesake's wild ride through Minamo and Oboro responsible for Tamiyo's PTSD?

No, that would be the jellyfish in the moon

I highly want to see Arlinn off Innistrad. To be frank, she pissed (is that **** material?) me off after I'd spent a great deal of time conceiving a Werewolf Planeswalker character and what interesting interactions could be done ("Hey, Pharika, cure for lycanthropy? Hey Atarka Clan, bet your dragonlord wouldn't mind a werewolf for dinner, try and catch me! Hey, Selesnya guys, strap a cool guild signet on my snout so I can be an honorary Selesnya Werewolf. What's a werewolf and why am I one? Something, something, boastful Kiora explanation. Use Lorwyn/Shadowmoor to control transformation back and forth planes. Take advantage of flimsy definition and transform differently as a result of Mirrodin's 'moons') but then Arlinn showed up and was just as ineffectual as Domri was, and has 100% control of her transformation into a werewolf, only thing she can't avoid is post-transformation nudity.

Tezzeret likes this .

I like Arlinn, but there probably is some wasted potential there, yeah. Though in fairness, that's mostly due to the constraints of other planes not having DFCs. They could have done that thing where she just shows up in the story but doesn't get a PW card, but that would only have been a compromise. It's a shame Mirrodin didn't have native werewolves, though. Werewolves with metal growing out of them would have looked amazing (see also: Darksteel Brute).

See Tel-jilad wolf.
Because the mirran wolves could TALK.

and Arlinn was okay. Tons better than bratty snotface vandalmullet.
...GODS I hate Domri so much. If they ever bring him back, it better be just so Garruk can axe him a question.

I said werewolf, not talking regular wolf. Besides, the talking wolves in the Mirrodin books were cool, but from all the inconsistecies Mirrodin had between the cards and the novels, the wolves were probably the most glaring one. I really wouldn't say no to a talking wolf planeswalker, though.

Arlinn is perfectly fine and so is her card, but her defining feature is being a werewolf and there isn't much they can do with that on other planes as she can't transform there.

What exactly is it you hate so much about Domri? I mean, I get he's an annoying teenage brat that would be a pest to have around. But when I personally dislike characters in Magic, it's usually not for who they are as people but for what Creative does with them (e.g. massively retconning their origin stories or involving them in timetravel paradoxes). I think judging from where he's now, there would be a lot of room to grow for Domri.

It's not just that he's an annoying, dumb, chaotic little brat, it's that he's all those things and is rewarded for that behavior. He lives in a society that idolizes such actions and he's a twerpy little golden child. The only thing that he has going against him is that he's shrimpy, and that's mostly just given him an annoying complex to live up to in spite of it.

I don't care what a character can grow into. Joffrey could have grown into a good character, but I wouldn't want to be on that journey if I can't stand the little **** in the first place.

Ok, I think I can get behind that. I guess it's ultimately about the things I mentioned that Creative does or doesn't do with the characters. I certrainly agree someone needs to teach him a lesson, preferably a painful one. And he could do with a mentor figure, too. At least him being a planeswalker means he isn't just hanging around with the Gruul anymore and has to interact with other people and cultures, so we'll see if something comes from that.